Isra Ansari

Arts & Culture, Special FeaturesDecember 31, 2014

Editors’ Books of 2014

By The Missing Slate Editors

Our editors pick the best reads of 2014 that contextualized the year for them.

Roving Eye, SpotlightOctober 27, 2014

Author of the Month: Robert Earle

By Isra Ansari, Robert Earle

“Mexico was the most spectacular, vital, provocative country… Anything can happen in Mexico, and its mysteries are endless.” Robert Earle, our Author of the Month for September, talks to Isra Ansari.

Alone in Babel, Arts & CultureJune 1, 2014

‘She has touched too many souls to ever be forgotten’: Maya Angelou (1928-2014)

By Isra Ansari

Isra Ansari remembers the inspirational Maya Angelou.

Roving Eye, SpotlightJanuary 18, 2014

Author of the Month: Minoli Salgado

By Isra Ansari, Minoli Salgado

“There are social expectations that reinforce the notion that women should not speak out at times when men might… In this sense, silence is gendered.” Isra Ansari interviews Minoli Salgado, The Missing Slate’s Author of the Month.

Alone in Babel, Arts & CultureOctober 24, 2013

The Blind Man’s Garden

By Isra Ansari

Isra Ansari finds plenty to admire in Nadeem Aslam’s latest novel.

In the Magazine

A Word from the Editor

Don’t cry like a girl. Be a (wo)man.

Why holding up the women in our lives can help build a nation, in place of tearing it down.

Literature

This House is an African House

"This house is an African house./ This your body is an African womanâ€™s body..." By Kadija Sesay.

Literature

Shoots

"Sapling legs bend smoothly, power foot in place,/ her back, parallel to solid ground,/ makes her torso a table of support..." By Kadija Sesay.

Literature

A Dry Season Doctor in West Africa

"She presses her toes together. I will never marry, she says. Jamais dans cette vie! Where can I find a man like you?" By...

In the Issue

Property of a Sorceress

"She died under mango trees, under kola nut/ and avocado trees, her nose pressed to their roots,/ her hands buried in dead leaves, her...

Literature

What Took Us to War

"What took us to war has again begun,/ and what took us to war/ has opened its wide mouth/ again to confuse us." By...

Literature

Sometimes, I Close My Eyes

"sometimes, this is the way of the world,/ the simple, ordinary world, where things are/ sometimes too ordinary to matter. Sometimes,/ I close my...

Literature

Quarter to War

"The footfalls fading from the streets/ The trees departing from the avenues/ The sweat evaporating from the skin..." By Jumoke Verissimo.

Literature

Transgendered

"Lagos is a chronicle of liquid geographies/ Swimming on every tongue..." By Jumoke Verissimo.

Fiction

Sketches of my Mother

"The mother of my memories was elegant. She would not step out of the house without her trademark red lipstick and perfect hair. She...

Fiction

The Way of Meat

"Every dayâ€”any dayâ€”any one of us could be picked out for any reason, and we would be... Weâ€™d part like hair, pushing into the...

Fiction

Between Two Worlds

"Ursula spotted the three black students immediately. Everyone did. They could not be missed because they kept to themselves and apart from the rest...."...

Essays

Talking Gender

"In fact it is often through the uninformed use of such words that language becomes a tool in perpetuating sexism and violence against women...

Essays

Unmasking Female Circumcision

"Though the origins of the practice are unknown, many medical historians believe that FGM dates back to at least 2,000 years." Gimel Samera looks...

Essays

Not Just A Phase

"...in the workplace, a person can practically be forced out of their job by discrimination, taking numerous days off for fear of their physical...

Essays

The Birth of Bigotry

"The psychology of prejudice demands that we are each our own moral police". Maria Amir on the roots of bigotry and intolerance.

Fiction

The Score

"The person on the floor was unmistakeably dead. It looked like a woman; she couldnâ€™t be sure yet..." By Hawa Jande Golakai.